Reflections on a Different Decade

Ten years ago today, I had returned from Kentucky, where my dad was dying a horrible death from esophageal cancer, to be with my kids for Halloween. While they were getting into their costumes and we were eating a light supper before hitting the neighborhood for trick-or-treat, just at sundown, the phone call came. My dad's horrible battle was over. No longer would he have the morphine-induced terror, no longer would he struggle to pull air into his cancer-ridden lungs, no more assaults on his poor, skeletal, emaciated (ghoulish-looking, even) body.

It was a relief that the horror was over.

In the ensuing months and years, however, I realized that the pain of his death wasn't just because of the nightmarish experience of watching a robust 200 pound kayaker become a skeleton in less than a year; nor was it the hole created in our family by the absence of his large personality; but, for me, it was something uniquely my own: He died and with him went the opportunity for me to have peace that my dad was proud of me.

Oh, I knew he loved me. I just never got the impression that he was proud of me, that he took pleasure from me.

For the longest time, when I thought about my dad, all I could picture was his displeasure. One scene was particularly powerful. On the day before he was to have surgery to remove his esophagus, I took him to the hospital for his pre-op appointment. Afterwards, we stopped at Arby's. While he was in the bathroom retching, I ordered and started eating lunch. He walked out of the restroom, took a look at my tray, and sneered, "Well, you didn't waste any time eating all those french fries did you?" No doubt, that comment was largely fueled by his own misery and fear over his body's assault on his digestive tract, but all I heard was, "Lynna, you are a disgusting, overweight pig."

After he died, I remembered the gifts he had given me on Valentine's Day that I had received as messages of displeasure such as sugar-free chocolates and low-fat cookbooks. I felt like I had allowed my dad to die unhappy and I felt a terrible burden of guilt that I was so defective that he couldn't die in peace. Not only had I let him down by carrying 50 extra pounds, but I also carried the visible representation of our family's "secret" that somewhere in our family genetic code there was an abnormality resulting in CMT.

For years after he died, I grieved and I ate more. "Damn you! I am not going to lose weight to gain your approval!" Yes, it is possible to continue battling a ghost.

As I have healed over the years through counseling that has allowed me to accept my body -- my disabled body-- and to begin honoring it for the gift that it is, my need for my dad's approval has dramatically lessened. I have realized that all the regard I needed did not die when he died, but that I could have that regard in abundance... first from God (who delights in me!) and internalized within myself as self-regard. I thought when my dad died that the chance to feel good about myself had died. (That was a gift I thought he had to bestow.)

Today, as I seek to have as healthy a body as possible through exercise and losing weight as a gift of honor to myself, I miss my dad. I wish he was here to share in my happiness and freedom. I think he would be proud. I love you, Dad.